Pope Francis attends an encounter at the World Council of Churches' ecumenical center in Geneva on 21 June. (photo: CNS/Paul Haring)

Pope in Geneva: ‘Our differences must not be excuses’(CNS) Not only God, but today’s broken, divided world is begging for unity among Christians, Pope Francis said on an ecumenical pilgrimage to Geneva. ”Our differences must not be excuses,” he said, because as Christ’s disciples, Christians can still pray together, evangelize and serve others…

Pope Francis flies to Geneva on ‘ecumenical pilgrimage’(Vatican News) Pope Francis Thursday morning flew to Geneva to join the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), a 350 member-group that is present in more than 110 countries and territories, making it the largest umbrella group of Christian denominations in the world. The WCC represents over 500 million Christians and includes most of world’s Orthodox Churches, a large number of Anglican, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist and Reformed Churches, as well as many United and Independent Churches…

Horrific details of chemical attack left out from U.N. report(The New York Times) At least twice this year, the Syrian military fired Iranian-made artillery shells filled with a chlorine-like substance that oozed poison slowly, giving victims just a few minutes to escape. In another attack, Syrian forces dropped a chemical bomb on the top-floor balcony of an apartment building, killing 49 people, including 11 children. Their skin turned blue. These details and others blaming Syria for atrocities in eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, were uncovered by a United Nations commission investigating and documenting possible war crimes in the seven-year-old conflict. But when the commission issued a report on Wednesday, the details were omitted…

Holy See: human trafficking is the ’largest manifestation of modern slavery(Vatican News) The Holy See says that human trafficking, the “largest manifestation of modern slavery”, can be defeated by “eliminating the culture of consumerism” and fostering a culture of encounter centered on respect for human dignity. Even as Pope Francis was visiting Geneva on Thursday, Archbishop Ivan Jurkovic, the Holy See’s Permanent Observer to the United Nations in Geneva made the statement at a Human Rights Council in the Swiss city during a session on trafficking in persons…

On the trail of the Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia(The Independent) I arrived in Ethiopia as an unlikely Indiana Jones figure. My brother and I were tracing the watery route of the Ark of the Covenant, which was allegedly brought to Ethiopia in 400 BC and then proceeded to take a tour of the lakes for the next 800 years…

The video above, produced by the Vatican, recently won an international prize for its treatment of issues affecting migrants and refugees. (video: Vatican News/YouTube)

Pope supports bishops’ criticism of ‘immoral’ immigration policy(CNS) Pope Francis said he stands with the U.S. bishops who recently condemned the Trump administration’s policy on immigration that has led to children being held in government shelters while their parents are sent to federal prisons. ”I am on the side of the bishops’ conference,” Pope Francis said in an interview with the Reuters news agency, published online 20 June. “Let it be clear that in these things, I respect (the position of) the bishops’ conference…”

Report on war crimes in eastern Ghouta(Euronews.com) United Nations investigators have accused both government and rebel forces of committing war crimes in the clashes around eastern Ghouta…

Vatican awarded international prize for video on migrants, refugees(Vatican News) A Vatican video campaign on migrants and refugees has become an internationally-recognized best practice in promoting positive change in society through social advertising. The International Social Advertising Festival or Publifestival awarded its “Best Strategy in Social Action” prize to a video made by the Section for Migrants and Refugees of the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Promotion. The video was produced by the agency La Machi Communication for Good Causes…

Church agencies rushing to help victims of monsoon in India(UCANews.com) Church agencies are rushing aid to thousands of people in northeast India after floods and landslides claimed at least 23 lives in the past week. The worst-hit villages are in the states of Assam, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura, where floodwater caused by monsoon rains inundated homes and farmland in low-lying areas. Landslides have cut off roads in hilly areas while rivers are rising to dangerous levels, leaving hundreds of villages marooned…

Filmmaker looks at hidden Jews of Ethiopia(Canadian Jewish News) For hundreds of years, perhaps longer, Ethiopian Jews were known by their neighbors as Falashas, a pejorative term meaning “landless” or “wanderer” that made them out to be perpetual outsiders in the east African country, even though Jews have resided there for millennia. Facing discrimination, some converted to Christianity. Others did not and from the late 1970s through to the ‘90s, the community was brought to Israel in several airlifts, including Operation Moses and Operation Solomon. The Christian converts, known as Falash Mura, were brought to Israel later, although several thousand still remain in the capital, Addis Ababa, waiting to join their relatives in the Promised Land…

The flagship quarterly publication took top honors, including Best Magazine (in the mission magazine category) at the 2018 Catholic Press Association awards last week in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The magazine won a total of 28 awards in categories that included writing, photography, editing and online newsletter. The magazine was cited for General Excellence in categories including Communications Director of the Year (3rd Place), Social Media Director of the Year (2nd Place), Best Electronic Newsletter (2nd Place) and Editor of the Year (Honorable Mention).

Citing the overall excellence of the publication, the award judges wrote:

The panel of judges included journalism professors from Marquette University, Loyola University, the University of Southern California and Spring Hill College, along with media professionals from The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, among other places.

A complete list of the awards can be found below, with links to the winning stories:

Pope Francis meets a group of refugees in St. Peter's Square. (photo: Vatican News/Caritas Internationalis)

Pope sends message to migrants, refugees(Vatican News) In a message to participants at a lunch organized by Caritas Rome in the city’s main soup kitchen that caters for tens of thousands of poor people, many of them migrants and refugees, Pope Francis on Tuesday highlighted the importance and the value of “sharing” spaces, events and simple things like a meal, in order to overcome barriers and nurture feelings of brotherhood…

Caritas Europa advocates for ’safe and legal pathways’ for refugees(Vatican News) Pope Francis said on Sunday that World Refugee Day, promoted by the UN is meant “to call attention to the anxiety and suffering lived by those who are forced to flee their homes because of conflict and persecution”. ”We stand for a Europe that provides durable solutions for people in need of protection”, Caritas Europa wrote in a statement released for World Refugee Day (20 June). They also call for “global responsibility” in reaching this goal so the burden on the shoulders of “countries already hosting the majority of refugees worldwide” can be shared…

UN: One in every 110 people in the world is forcibly displaced(The Telegraph) A record 68.5 million people have been forced flee their homes due to war, violence and persecution, notably in places like Myanmar and Syria, the UN said on Tuesday. By the end of 2017, the number was nearly three million higher than the previous year and showed a 50-percent increase from the 42.7 million uprooted from their homes a decade ago, according to a report by the UN refugee agency…

Indians fleeing persecution among those being detained in U.S.(The Oregonian) Of the 123 people now in Sheridan, the most populous nationality is not Honduran or Guatemalan, it is East Indian. Fifty-two listed India as their home country. Several identified themselves as Sikhs or Christians fleeing religious persecution from the Hindu majority. The East Indians told the delegation that their Hindi and Punjabi translators were the first outsiders they’ve been able to talk to since they were imprisoned weeks ago..

Rare 1,000-year-old amulet with Arabic blessing found in Jerusalem(LiveScience.com) Archaeologists discovered a 1,000-year-old clay amulet about the size of a dime at one of the oldest historical sites in Jerusalem. The tiny amulet belonged to a man named Kareem and is inscribed with a personal prayer, “Kareem trusts in Allah. Lord of the Worlds is Allah.” Teams from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and Tel Aviv University unearthed the rare ornamental piece beneath the Givati Parking Lot in the City of David, in Jerusalem Walls National Park. In the past decade, archaeologists have uncovered numerous artifacts, including precious stones and gold coins, beneath the Givati Parking Lot — the largest excavation site in Jerusalem…

In this 2012 photo, a young Ethiopian woman plans to be smuggled to Israel — an elaborate process that would require dressing in a veil; crossing into Sudan, then Egypt, likely being arrested; claiming to be Eritrean as a cover story to prevent being sent home; and linking up with another smuggler and finding her way to Israel, where she has friends currently working as domestic servants. For more details, read The High Cost of Leaving, from the May 2012 edition of ONE. (photo: Peter Lemieux)

In a world in which it seems there are ultimately no secrets, we tend to believe that if we haven’t seen it blaring on the news, it just does not exist or at least does not exist near me.

On the other hand, we also have the expression “hidden in plain sight.”

Human trafficking is one of those things “hidden in plain sight” — an injustice against human life and dignity that afflicts far too many in our world, and in the world CNEWA serves.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) defines trafficking as “recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power, or of a person of vulnerability, or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control of another person for the purpose of exploitation” — such as prostitution or involuntary labor. Human trafficking is also commonly referred to as “contemporary forms of slavery.”

Although human trafficking is relatively unknown to many people in Western Europe and North America, it is a huge problem. DoSomething, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) created to educate about human trafficking and to end it, estimates that:

There are approximately 20 to 30 million slaves in the world

80% for sexual exploitation

19% for forced labor

600,000 to 800,000 people — 80% of whom are woman and 50% children are trafficked across international borders annually

Human trafficking is the third largest international crime industry (behind illegal drugs and arms trafficking)

Even the United States is not immune to this scourge. In 2017, 8,524 cases of human trafficking were reported across the U.S. Of this, more than 6,000 were for sex trafficking and more than 1,200 for forced labor. It is certain the number of cases reported is a small percentage of the actual trafficking going on. In addition, although there are some who dispute the statistics, it is estimated that cities where the annual Super Bowl is held often experience a spike in prostitution, a large part of which is carried on by girls and women in sexual slavery.

If this is the case in the developed world — where there are laws forbidding trafficking and law enforcement agencies to enforce those laws — one can only imagine the situation in countries where the rule of law has broken down and the fabric of society is badly rent.

One of the major works of CNEWA is to help and support refugees in the Middle East. While there is a difference in international law between smuggling people (of their own free will) into target countries and trafficking people (against their will), the distinction often blurs in regions where there are large populations of refugees, asylum seekers and displaced persons. In some places, the situation is so bad that people in order to survive sell themselves or their children into what is, for all practical purposes, slavery. Very often people who believe they are being smuggled end up being trafficked.

In CNEWA’s world and elsewhere, it’s important to note that women religious have been at the forefront in the battle against human trafficking and sexual slavery. Both at the United Nations and on the ground, women’s religious communities have not only pressed for laws and international conventions against trafficking, they have also put their lives on the line in preventing it, rescuing those who have been trapped in all forms of slavery and trying to eliminate the causes which would bring people to sell themselves or their children into slavery.

“I think in Ethiopia, particularly in the rural areas, the situation of young girls is still critical,” she said. “Lack of education, lack of opportunities for childhood, then being forced to deal with many negative cultural practices like female genital mutilation, kidnapping and forced marriage. These practices don’t help to empower and promote women. This cycle must be broken. The poverty, lack of education, lack of good economic environment — this still has deep influences on women and continues to keep them in poverty.

Having said that, I think we have to look at the more positive things that have happened, through our own services, through the help of CNEWA, and through NGOs and other religious organizations that continue to empower women. So I prefer to look at it from the positive aspect. Changes are happening and are continuing to happen.”

What is the current state of the migration crisis in Europe?(The Guardian) Three years after Europe’s biggest influx of migrants and refugees since the Second World War, tensions between E.U. member states over how to handle irregular immigration from outside the bloc — mainly from the Middle East and Africa — are rising again…

Iraq to rebuild Yazidi shrines in Sinjar(AINA) Iraq’s Ministry of Construction and Housing is rebuilding Yazidi shrines, administrative headquarters, and roads in Nineveh Province’s city of Sinjar, in what the ministry called a ‘major campaign,’ on Thursday…

Syria’s not waiting for peace to rebuild, and Iran wants to help(Al Monitor) Taking full control of the capital city of Damascus and the surrounding area for the first time since the civil war broke out in 2011 has given the Syrian government new impetus. That success also allows it to approach reconstruction of infrastructure and cities…

U.N. slams ‘excessive’ Israeli force against Palestinians in Gaza(Al Jazeera) The U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday condemned Israel for excessive use of force against Palestinian civilians, in a resolution adopted by a strong majority of 120 countries. The 193-member world body rejected the United States’ efforts to blame Gaza’s Hamas rulers for the violence that has killed more than 120 Palestinians in the past two and half months…

Ukraine’s Greek Catholic chief sees ‘no choice’ but dialogue with Russia(Crux) “For us, for the simple people, for the Christians, reconciliation means not only prayer for reconciliation, but also effective acts of reconciliation, because that is how we construct a peace for the next generation,” said Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuck, leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, in an interview with a small group of reporters…

In this August 2017 photo, a man shovels the road in Qaraqosh’s main commercial street, heavily destroyed by fighting between Islamic State militants and Iraqi coalition forces. (photo: Raed Rafei)

In post-ISIS Christian town, heroism and paradox both abound(Crux) Over the centuries, the Middle East has always been a land where expectations tend to experience especially tough collisions with reality, so it probably should be no surprise that a massive effort to rebuild the Christian village which was the epicenter of a brutal ISIS onslaught in 2014 has, at its heart, three grand paradoxes. Qaraqosh — or “Baghdeda” to Christians, who make up 96 percent of the population and prefer to use the city’s Aramaic name to reclaim their Christian identity — was the largest Christian community on the Nineveh Plains, a swath of land that overlaps the border between Iraq and Kurdish-controlled territory…

Georgian Prime Minister Kvirikashvili resigns(The Daily Star) Georgia’s Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili resigned on Wednesday amid a disagreement with the leader of the ruling party, Bidzina Ivanishvili, who is a former prime minister and the ex-Soviet country’s richest man. “We’ve had some disagreements with the leader of the ruling party,” Kvirikashvili said in a televised statement. “I think there is a moment now when the leader of the (ruling) party should be given an opportunity to staff a new cabinet.” Kvirikashvili, 50, has been prime minister since 2015…

U.N. votes on condemning Israel over Gaza violence(Al Monitor) The United Nations General Assembly will vote Wednesday on condemning Israel for Palestinian deaths in Gaza in a resolution fiercely opposed by the United States. At least 129 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire during protests near the border with Gaza that began at the end of March…

Can Jordan’s new prime minister reform the government?(Washington Post) Last week, Jordan’s King Abdullah II appointed former education minister Omar Razzaz as the new prime minister after protests rocked the country. And Razzaz has already made several concessions to the protesters over taxes. But more interesting is that Razzaz said a “new social contract” will be a top item on his government’s agenda…

A man pushes a cart loaded with lunch boxes through a flooded street after heavy rain in Mumbai on 9 June 2018. (photo: Punit Paranjpe/AFP/Getty Images)

Caritas India offers climate change survival classes(UCAN India) As India continues to be struck by natural disasters and extreme weather conditions, a church group is pitching in with others to help prepare villagers for when calamity strikes. Since April, dust storms and rains across the northern and eastern part of the country have killed 278 people, 223 of them in the first fortnight of May…

Iraqi shepherd determined that Christianity not only survive, but thrive(Crux) Officially speaking, there’s no index of the moral heroes of Catholicism in our time. There would be plenty of candidates, clergy and religious lay men and women, all over the world who put their lives on the line in every imaginable way to serve the planet’s most marginalized and suffering people. Somewhere near the top of the list, however, would have to be Archbishop Bashar Warda, leader of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Erbil, Iraq…

Iraq’s favorite lake dries up in sign of worse to come(Al Monitor) Karbala’s Lake Milh hasn’t seen a lot of visitors in the last few years. Once a popular picnic destination for Karbala residents, the lake’s water has dwindled, leaving most of it a desert with nothing but derelict fishing boats and dead animals…

Debunking four myths surrounding the Palestinian protests(Vice) Over the past ten weeks, tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza have participated in the “March of Return,” mass nonviolent demonstrations to protest Israel’s illegal siege. Throughout, Israel has responded with violent force. In order to legitimize its resort to overwhelming force, Israel has sought to cast doubt on the popular character of the demonstrations in Gaza and to present them as a threat to its security. A number of myths about the Gaza protests have consequently gained widespread traction…

Noah’s Ark and the Assyrian relief(AINA) A team of archaeologists is searching Turkey’s Mount Cudi (also called Judi Dagh) for the resting place of Noah’s Ark. While their investigations have not turned up any new evidence of the fabled ship, they have discovered an ancient Assyrian relief, carved into the stone of the mountain…

Hungary & Ukraine inaugurate orphanage amid concerns(Vatican News) Anita Herczegh, the wife of Hungarian President János Áder, and Ukrainian First Lady Marina Poroshenko came to the St. Michael Center in Rativci with a mission: They want to ensure that orphans in what is Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region can grow up in family homes at a time when Ukraine faces war and hardship…

In this image from 2015, Ukrainian Catholic Archbishop Stefan Soroka of Philadelphia presides at a liturgy during the annual Knights of Columbus convention in Philadelphia. Hundreds turned out to pay tribute to him this weekend as he plans to retire. (photo: CNS /Knights of Columbus)

Syrian orphans who fled war find new home(AP) Nearly 50 children orphaned by the Syrian war escaped the hell that was their hometown of Aleppo after they appeared in a distressing video and appealed for their lives as government forces moved in under a hail of fire. In the year and half since, the children and their instructors have been uprooted twice more: once to escape similar bombardment in another rebel stronghold and again when they fled a town that has been overwhelmed by people seeking shelter from Syria’s war…

Gaza students do well at Catholic-run school(CNS) Though it can be “devastating” to hear about the situation along the border, the Rosary School students interviewed — all Muslims, as are the majority of the students at the school — said it was clear to them they can help the Palestinian cause by getting an education and contributing to society in the future…

Hundreds turn out to bid farewell to retiring Ukrainian Catholic archbishop(Philly.com) For 17 years, [Archbishop] Stefan Soroka has presided over a 100,000-member national church in transition. He has led the nation’s Ukrainian Catholics as membership has declined and immigrants from Ukraine have helped to replenish the pews, all while coping with health challenges that include a heart condition and cancer. Earlier this year, he decided to follow his doctor’s advice and resign from his duties. On Sunday, a crowd of more than 600 filled the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Northern Liberties to honor him and say goodbye…

Lebanon installs electronic gates at refugee camp(Middle East Monitor) The Lebanese army has installed electronic gates at the entrances to the Palestinian Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon, residents say according to a report by The New Arab. The gates, which are placed at four main entrances and smaller exit points, are the latest measure to ramp up security at the Palestinian refugee camp…